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Bottled Water To Be Recycled More?

Forgive the awkwardly phrased headline, but The Independent newspaper in the UK reports there’s been a backlash against the number of plastic bottles that aren’t recycled and pressure is mounting on drinks manufacturers. In fact, one city council (Liverpool) have banned bottled and dispenser water on their premises – saving £48,000 a year, as well as the planet.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) released figures showing that sales of mineral water in Britain amounted to 965 million litres last year – up a third from 2001. That’s around £1.6billion worth of bottled water – still small compared to America’s £5.4billion, but still significant.

So has the backlash begun? Partially thanks to a EU campaign and lobbying Congress in the US, both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, who make 55% of the plastic bottles we use, have announced they plan to overhaul their operations to recycle more.

Coca-Cola has announced it plans to recycle all its plastic bottles in the US within five years and PepsiCo’s chief executive has said it needs to do more to recycle.

So they’re reacting to the pressure by the looks of things, despite sales of bottled water going up steadily, but they may see the tide is turning. You can find out more about what Life Goggles thinks of bottled water here.